Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is dropping hints that he may be ready to license the brains of the Xbox gaming device to other companies. It's a risky move to better compete with Sony's PlayStation, according to one analyst.

In an interview with Nikkei Newspaper in Tokyo, Gates was asked whether Microsoft would consider opening the manufacture of Xbox units to third parties. Gates responded that "there is nothing concrete" but said the company is always talking with partners about how to expand the Xbox culture.

Gates declined to give details, such as which companies Microsoft might be thinking about working with or if a license would be extended to the underlying software of other electronics equipment, such as handheld devices, PCs or home digital media centers.

Microsoft's Xbox currently
plays second fiddle to Sony's PlayStation when it comes to sales, with Nintendo's GameCube ranking third. The PlayStation makes up more than 60 percent of the market, with the Xbox accounting for 29 percent of sales and the GameCube rounding out the top-tier players with 11 percent, according to the latest statistics from NPD Group.

Despite the suggestion that Microsoft's device could be cloned, Xbox representative Molly O'Donnell reaffirmed the company's stance that the Xbox is exclusively a Microsoft product.

"There's certainly a potential for other hardware companies to manufacture Xbox some day in the future, but that is not something we're focused on right now," she said.

Licensing the Xbox's underlying software to other manufacturers is, of course, not outside the realm of Microsoft's capabilities. The company found sterling success in licensing its Windows operating system to PC makers.

But breaking the traditional proprietary mold of the game console world is something no one else has tried and something JupiterResearch analyst Michael Gartenberg says would be a bold move on Microsoft's part.

"Clearly, everyone at Microsoft is thinking out of the box to increase sales. I mean, look at the nontraditional way of introducing the Xbox on MTV," Gartenberg said. "It sounds like they are just testing the waters with a hybrid of the (white box) PC model and the (proprietary hardware) video game model."

Gartenberg said Microsoft's strategy may be centered on gaming software. The majority of money made in the video game industry comes from the games themselves, not from the hardware. Recently, both Microsoft and Sony reported that the newer models of their devices will be priced far less than the cost needed to make them.

Microsoft's reasoning, Gartenberg said, may be that the more Xbox-like consoles there were on the market, the easier it would be to sell Xbox-branded games. That would mean Microsoft would have a larger market for the titles it published. And it could also put the squeeze on the PlayStation by inspiring game developers to focus on titles for the Xbox and its generic brethren.

"No one video game software developer just writes for Xbox," Gartenberg said. "But what it would do is tell publishers, 'Hey, look how many more consoles we are on.'

"Still," Gartenberg said, "Microsoft would have to make sure that all the people who license their Xbox are up to their standards, and at the end of the day they would still be competing with Xbox sales."

3DO tried to replace the game console and the VCR with a new standard. Even with EA's powerfull backing it went nowhere. (To my surprise at the time.) Microsoft would be a fool to try again such a silly idea. Consoles lose money, and games make money. That has been how the game has been for the past 10 years and it still works.

Besides, he was asked a leading question and gave a vague answer. Hardly news.

Atari had clones of the 2600 (sears/and i think the other was made by coleco) sega also had a clone of their sega cd by JVC called the X-EYE and as mentioned before the 3DO also had clones.

As far as reliabilty goes the xbox has been as reliable or more so than the sony (ps1 or ps2), i sell both and we get more ps2's defective than xbox's but that maybe because sony has sold more ps2's.

And u can't really compare the xbox with problems that the pc has just because it uses a stripped down version of windows. it's alot easier to have problems with pc's and alot of the problems that pc's have is because of the mutitude of different hardware configs there are, not to mention all the crap/buggy software people install and leave on their systems.

3DO tried to replace the game console and the VCR with a new standard. Even with EA's powerfull backing it went nowhere. (To my surprise at the time.) Microsoft would be a fool to try again such a silly idea. Consoles lose money, and games make money. That has been how the game has been for the past 10 years and it still works.

Besides, he was asked a leading question and gave a vague answer. Hardly news.

Atari had clones of the 2600 (sears/and i think the other was made by coleco) sega also had a clone of their sega cd by JVC called the X-EYE and as mentioned before the 3DO also had clones.

As far as reliabilty goes the xbox has been as reliable or more so than the sony (ps1 or ps2), i sell both and we get more ps2's defective than xbox's but that maybe because sony has sold more ps2's.

And u can't really compare the xbox with problems that the pc has just because it uses a stripped down version of windows. it's alot easier to have problems with pc's and alot of the problems that pc's have is because of the mutitude of different hardware configs there are, not to mention all the crap/buggy software people install and leave on their systems.

Wait.... So isn't Microsoft the company with the tired &#38; creaky OS, that is responsible for so much of the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes of the average computer user? The last time we left them in charge of the store, they spent their time creating something that we had to have, but didn't work very well. Why would I want to introduce their computing nightmare into my gaming hardware? Haven't we seen enough blue screens already... who want's to start seeing them on their TV?

The loss of hair, the damage to the monitor caused by bashing it with a keyboard and the neural damage done by losing 120 gigs of data. Just a few to mention. now I know that a modchip+linux combo is on the horizon so wait up. All is not lost. Until then PS3 (wich runs linux by default).

Wait.... So isn't Microsoft the company with the tired &#38; creaky OS, that is responsible for so much of the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes of the average computer user? The last time we left them in charge of the store, they spent their time creating something that we had to have, but didn't work very well. Why would I want to introduce their computing nightmare into my gaming hardware? Haven't we seen enough blue screens already... who want's to start seeing them on their TV?

The loss of hair, the damage to the monitor caused by bashing it with a keyboard and the neural damage done by losing 120 gigs of data. Just a few to mention. now I know that a modchip+linux combo is on the horizon so wait up. All is not lost. Until then PS3 (wich runs linux by default).

It is going to be higher than the XBOX 360 because it (frankly) has a whole lot more additional features and Blu-ray dvd's instead of the HD-DVD that MS is going to use (lower capacity than Blu-ray). I believe that the PS3 will be around $400-475 at its base price, not to mention what "bundles" stores are going to make you buy.

Who would want to sell Xbox 360 clones at a loss. There is no money in gaming console hardware. With the exception of peripherals. Money is made in the software. Any company that took this up from Microsoft would be dumb.

With the original Xbox, Microsoft's initial plan was to get a deal with some computer manufacturer, and have them make the consoles while Microsoft focussed on the game software. They shopped this idea to Dell, but Michael Dell basically told Microsoft that they were crazy. There's no profit in making the consoles themselves. The big profits are in the games sales.

It is going to be higher than the XBOX 360 because it (frankly) has a whole lot more additional features and Blu-ray dvd's instead of the HD-DVD that MS is going to use (lower capacity than Blu-ray). I believe that the PS3 will be around $400-475 at its base price, not to mention what "bundles" stores are going to make you buy.

Who would want to sell Xbox 360 clones at a loss. There is no money in gaming console hardware. With the exception of peripherals. Money is made in the software. Any company that took this up from Microsoft would be dumb.

With the original Xbox, Microsoft's initial plan was to get a deal with some computer manufacturer, and have them make the consoles while Microsoft focussed on the game software. They shopped this idea to Dell, but Michael Dell basically told Microsoft that they were crazy. There's no profit in making the consoles themselves. The big profits are in the games sales.

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